What data should flow between your SAP Business One ERP and your Shopify/Shopify Plus store?

What data should flow between my SAP Business One ERP and my Shopify/Shopify Plus store? And, how do I make that happen?

Friday, October 20, 2017Lauren Macdonald
Most online sellers using Shopify or Shopify Plus and SAP Business One understand why integrating the two can be helpful for improving their business process and boosting their overall customer satisfaction levels. But what many are unsure of is what data flows are most critical and should be automated between their systems.

We get it. These systems hold so much data and it’s not always easy to discern what data flows or ‘touchpoints’ are needed to make the entire selling process easier and more efficient. There’s also the added complexity of data that is represented differently in a sellers’ SAP Business One ERP than it is in their online Shopify store. For example, a merchant that is selling pens online, may have the data recorded per unit (a single pen) on their Shopify/Shopify Plus store, but in their SAP Business One ERP the pens are recorded per box (let’s say a dozen).

Understanding what data you need integrated, and how that data needs to be manipulated or transformed between systems, is the first step in answering the seemingly daunting questions of, “what data should flow between my SAP Business One ERP and my Shopify store?” and, even more confusingly, “how do I make that happen?”

We’re here to help:

The simple (albeit unhelpful) answer is that it’s really up to you when determining what data you want integrated between your business systems.

However, the most common data flows that Shopify sellers look for when connecting with their SAP Business One ERP system are orders, inventory, and shipping/tracking updates. Almost every online seller understands the value in having these data types automated.
Also popular is product data and customer data.

For a full list of available data flows when connecting SAP Business One to Shopify/Shopify Plus, try this blueprint builder tool where you can map out the exact touchpoints in your ideal integration solution. Keep in mind that the more complex your integration becomes, the more expensive it will be. We recommend getting your feet wet by starting with the data flows that are most important for your business, and adding more as your business grows.

So lets’ say you’ve decided on the data you want integrated. Now, how are you going to make it happen?
Your first option is to build a connection yourself, in-house. If you choose this option, make sure you have a plan in place for how you’ll handle upgrades to your systems, as well as a back-up plan if your developer is away on vacation when something happens to stop working.

A safer option is to outsource to a reliable iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) vendor that can build, maintain, and support your integration solution. With an iPaaS vendor in charge of your integration solution, you can rest assured that upgrades, issues, maintenance, etc. will be fully managed on your behalf. Your data will flow back and forth between SAP and Shopify/Shopify Plus without you needing to lift a finger!

“Integration has saved us at least 10 hours a week on just the fulfillment side. This new process has helped streamline the way our orders are inputted into Sage 100, and our team couldn’t be happier with the automation.
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Kyle Brandt, Wilson Electronics

“Life at Char-Griller is better now with eBridge integration.”

Nicholas Williams, Char-Griller

“If your business is at a point where you are doing a lot of manual data entry and you need automate processes, I would definitely recommend looking at eBridge Connections. Now that we have an integration solution in place, I can’t imagine operating without it.”

Eric Marquardt, LifeCORE Fitness

“So far so good. We are happy to see this [ShipStation integration] process up and running.”

Jason Barnell, DroneNerds

“eBridge's team understood what we needed and helped us every step of the way. They were always available for whatever we needed as we developed our new systems and helped bring us from idea to implementation to real world application. I would like to say thank you to the entire eBridge family for all the time and effort they put in to help us achieve our goals and highly recommend them to any business that sells online.”